$10K degree program has benefited few

It sounded like a great deal: Get a four-year college degree for the low price of $10,000.

But nearly five years after the state’s community colleges agreed to offer these discounted degrees at the request of Gov. Rick Scott, few students in South Florida have benefited.

Two students have participated from Palm Beach State College — and only one graduated. Fifteen Broward College students have been enrolled and four have graduated so far. Miami Dade College has 180 students pursuing a $10,000 degree, but the program hasn’t been there long enough to have graduates yet, a spokesman said.

Restrictive eligibility requirements, which vary from college to college, make the program daunting for many, experts say. Among them is a requirement that students must be full-time.

Comparable state numbers were not available.

The $10,000 price is a significant savings from the normal $14,500 cost of a state college bachelor’s degree. State universities charge about $25,000 over four years.

But the often-restrictive eligibility requirements, which vary from college to college, have made it daunting for many students, experts say.

Broward College signs up students their junior year and limited the low-cost degrees to high achievers attending full-time. Miami Dade College has enrolled students their freshmen year and limited enrollment to recent high school graduates from Miami-Dade County. Palm Beach State, which has discontinued the program, offered the degrees in only one field: information management.

“The research is pretty clear that for financial aid programs to be effective, the eligibility requirements need to be as simple and straightforward as possible,” said Troy Miller, associate director for research and policy for the Florida College Access Network, a nonprofit group that advocates for college affordability.

And the discounts might not have even been needed, some colleges and financial aid experts say, because many students attending community colleges received Pell Grants and other aid that already kept their costs below $10,000.

For the few who have taken advantage of the degrees, the savings have been significant.

Patricia Gallagan, 20, of Hollywood, combined the discount from the $10,000 degree with other grants and waivers. While still in high school, she received her associate’s degree free of charge through a dual enrollment program.

She graduated this month from Broward College with a bachelor’s in special education. Her total college costs were less than $2,500.

“I was able to graduate with no loans. No debt. It was a blessing,” she said.

She said she was surprised that many of her classmates haven’t taken advantage of the offer.

Broward College officials say the eligibility requirements excluded many students. About 77 percent of Broward College students attend part-time, but the $10,000 degree requires they be full-time students who can finish in four years. They also must have at least a 3.0 grade point average.

The 15 students who enrolled in the program in the past two years is higher than the college’s projection of five students a year, said Amy Hyman Gregory, who oversees academic services for Broward College.

“We view this as an elite, prestigious program that attracts the best of our best students,” she said.

Although only two students applied for the program at Palm Beach State College, officials say many other students received other forms of financial aid that kept their expenses low.

The $10,000 degree required that they be fulltime, and most students are part-time, Palm Beach State officials said.

Peter Barbatis, a vice president at Palm Beach State, said the college has frozen tuition for the past five years, offered a variety of scholarships and worked with the campus bookstore to keep the cost of textbooks and supplies reasonable.

“The college is very committed to maintaining an affordable education and removing barriers,” Barbatis said.

Miami Dade College has a larger share of students pursuing the program, partly because the $10,000 degree is an extension of a scholarship program that was already available to freshmen who graduated from a Miami-Dade high school with at least a 3.0 grade point average.

While most students at Miami Dade College aren’t pursuing the $10,000 degrees, they are still getting a great deal, officials said. Of the 1,105 students who received bachelor’s degrees in 2016-17, about 65 percent received grants and scholarships that exceeded the tuition and fees, spokesman Juan Mendieta said.

“We pride ourselves on offering an affordable, highquality education to all our students,” Mendieta said. “We are happy we have been able to identify a viable mechanism that uses scholarship dollars to provide these $10,000 degrees to our students.”